House Production with Ableton Push Part 1

This is a course for anyone wanting to get into producing House music with Ableton's Push, by one of the most respected producers of the last decade, Paul Maddox. With numerous releases under his own name and also his co- productions as Spektre, on labels like Data, Positiva, Tidy and Viscious, his tracks have seen support from revered DJs such as Carl Cox, Richie Hawtin and James Zabiela.

On this course, Paul shows a hands-on approach to making music, using Ableton's revolutionary control surface Push. Multiple drum tracks are created, sequenced, layered and processed, with parts played in live or programmed with Push's step sequencer and then edited with the hardware controls. A funky bassline is then added to complete the groove, created from scratch with the Live Suite synth Operator.

Accompanying the lessons is a download pack containing the Live Set from the course and over 100 extra house drums hits and bass samples from the Loopmasters collection.

Check out the free sample module below for an example of the course content and delivery....

FREE SAMPLE MODULE - FIRST 10 MINUTES FROM LESSON 1

Module Details

Programming the Main Drum Track

In this lesson, Paul loads a 909 kit into track 1 and then uses Push's step sequencer to program the drums, laying down the kick, snare, hats and other percussion that's added to inject character and life into the beat. As well as showing how to process the drums from Push, Paul shows a few different ways of adding shuffle and a natural sound to the groove.

Adding Extra Drums and Percussion

In this lesson, Paul shows how to take slices from a live drum loop and layer them with the main drums, as well as add some additional percussion, demonstrating some other ways that Push can be used to program drums. He then creates and edits some new clips, to start building fills and variations to the beat.

Drum Mixing

The third lesson on the course tackles how to mix the drums, looking at balancing and adding a number of different effects, including EQ, reverb and compression.

Adding a Bassline

This final lesson shows how to add a bassline using Push, by first creating the bass sound with Live's Operator, using FM to add some nice texture to the patch, and then by playing in a cool pattern with the pads. The sound is then processed and the pattern edited to complete the 8-bar sequence.